Where to get boxes

Attracting bluebirds

Bluebirds prefer open spaces, low grass and scattered trees. If you have that environment in your back yard, you might easily attract bluebirds there. Here's how:

•Hang a bluebird box at least 5 feet high, in the shade, facing north in front of a pesticide-free lawn.

Make sure to hang the box year round, as bluebirds will scout the box in winter and return to it in April when the nesting season begins.

You can lure bluebirds near your box with mealworms and continue to provide them during the nesting season that ends in July.

Make sure you have a bug-friendly yard. Insects are their preferred food.

Bluebirds like privacy. If you are feeding other seed-eating birds, such a finches, bluebirds will go elsewhere.

A source of fresh, moving water is a strong attraction.

Keep string, Easter grass and other items that can strangle bluebirds out of your yard.

Graphics

Sometimes we mistakenly believe that if there is a problem on the planet, some group of distinguished scientists somewhere will lead the charge to fix it.

But when it comes to the plight of bluebirds, it took an ordinary citizen, Dick Purvis of Anaheim, to recognize that bluebird populations had plummeted in Southern California and to discover the reason.

It turns out the problem was twofold. Old-growth trees, particularly with holes and rotted-out cavities that Purvis calls dead snags, were removed for housing developments and are still regularly cleared from parks.

Then the bigger, stronger, European starlings and pesky English sparrows, both imported birds that made their way west, bullied bluebirds from the few remaining sites suitable to raise their young.

Enter Purvis, who began to turn the boat around by building bluebird nesting boxes that kept starlings and sparrows out.

"My family and I were having a picnic at O'Neill Park in 1984," Purvis said. "I spotted a pair of bluebirds, and it occurred to me that I hadn't seen a single one in decades."

Purvis recalls a nesting box he had as a child in Georgia. "Everybody in the South had them because bluebirds are so entertaining. In fact, the rumor is that Native Americans began the trend by hanging gourds for the birds."

Purvis hung his first hand-built box in Featherly Park and had a pair of nesting bluebirds his first year.

Twenty-eight years later, he isn't the only person bringing bluebirds back from the brink. Hundreds of members of the Southern California Bluebird Club hang bluebird boxes in golf courses, parks and cemeteries across the county and fledge thousands of bluebirds per year.

A western blue bird with a bug in its beak sits in a sycamore tree at Irvine Regional Park in Orange. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Dick Purvis of Anaheim and a member of the Southern California Bluebird Club uses a pole to remove a bluebird box from a tree during a field trip to William R. Mason Regional Park in Irvine as part of the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference in Newport Beach on Oct. 5th. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
An attendee to the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference in Newport Beach last week draws a bluebird during a workshop by artist Sama Wareh of Costa Mesa. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Dick Purvis, far right, of Anaheim and others, inlcuding this "bluebird lady," talk about bluebird boxes during a field trip to William R. Mason Regional Park in Irvine as part of the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference in Newport Beach on October 5th. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Bluebird nest boxes handed painted by Jo-Ann Coller of North Tustin were displayed at the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference in Newport Beach on October 4th-6th. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Jim Semelroth, of Laguna Niguel and a member of the Southern California Bluebird Club, talks to a small group at William R. Mason Regional Park in Irvine during a field trip as part of the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference in Newport Beach on Oct. 5th. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Jim Semelroth, back center, of Laguna Niguel and a member of the Southern California Bluebird Club, talks to a small group at William R. Mason Regional Park in Irvine during a field trip as part of the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A western blue bird at Irvine Regional Park in Orange. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Tom Uslan of Clarksburg searches for bluebirds at William R. Mason Regional Park in Irvine during a field trip as part of the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference in Newport Beach on October 5th. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Sama Wareh of Costa Mesa draws a bluebird from a photograph as she teaches a workshop at the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference at The Radisson Hotel in Newport Beach on October 5th. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Attendees to the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference in Newport Beach last week draw bluebirds during a workshop by artist Sama Wareh of Costa Mesa. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Mike Spohn, right, of San Clemente shows conference attendees a bluebird nest box outfitted with a web camera. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A bluebird nest box outfitted with a web camera put together by Mike Spohn of San Clemente is on display at the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A file video on the screen shows a western bluebird in a nest box outfitted with a web camera put together by Mike Spohn of San Clemente. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A bluebird nest box outfitted with a web camera was put together by Mike Spohn of San Clemente and on display at the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Dick Purvis of Anaheim and a member of the Southern California Bluebird Club talks about the design of a bluebird box during a field trip to William R. Mason Regional Park in Irvine. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Dick Purvis of Anaheim and a member of the Southern California Bluebird Club talks about bluebird boxes during a field trip to William R. Mason Regional Park in Irvine as part of the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Steve Simmons, of Merced and a member of the California Bluebird Recovery Program, talks with another conference attendee during a field trip to William R. Mason Regional Park in Irvine as part of the North American Bluebird Society 35th Annual Conference in Newport Beach October 5th. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A western blue bird is striking against the green background at Irvine Regional Park in Orange. MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Elena Hery, a member of the SoCal Bluebird Club, has a very friendly encounter with a Western Bluebird that used her nest box this year. COURTESY OF ELENA HERY
Elena Hery, a member of the SoCal Bluebird Club, a visit from a very curious Western Bluebird that used her nest box this year. COURTESY OF ELENA HERY
A male western bluebird gathers mealworms for his brood at a feeder in Coto de Caza. KEN TOMB
A male bluebird feeds his young. KEN CARRIER
SoCal Bluebird Club member Elena Hery shared some photos of a very unusual pair of Western Bluebirds (a.k.a. Romeo and Juliet) that used her nest box this year. COURTESY OF ELENA HERY
Dick Purvis is a volunteer for Dept. of Fish and Game. Some know him as the Bluebird Man. He's built and placed several thousand bird houses around the county for bluebirds. Four bluebird eggs are discovered in a bird house at Ralph B. Clark Regional Park in Buena Park. FILE:, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A male Western bluebird leaps from the opening of a nesting box positioned in an ecalyptus tree along the Santa Ana River Trail in Orange. BRUCE CHAMBERS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A bluebird perches on a branch near a birdhouse in Placentia. ROD VEAL, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A western bluebird is one of many birds to be found on a walk around Aldrich Park in UCI. FILE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Baby bluebirds peek their heads from the hole in the bluebird house waiting for food in Springville, Ala. JOE SONGER, BIRMINGHAM NEWS

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